Thomas DeSimone

Male

BornMay 24, 1950

HometownCambridge, Massac...

DiedJan 14, 1979

Death PlaceQueens

NationalityAmerican

Other NamesThomas Anthony De...

Thomas Anthony DeSimone, also known as "Two-Gun Tommy" or "Tommy D", was an Italian-American gangster and associate of the Lucchese crime family in New York. DeSimone was a grandson and nephew of Los Angeles mob bosses Rosario DeSimone and Frank DeSimone. He was married to Angelica "Cookie" Spione, but had many mistresses, including Theresa Ferrara. In the 1990 Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas, the character Tommy DeVito is based on DeSimone.… Read More

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'The court also asked its Disciplinary Counsel to consider possible disciplinary action against Providence lawyer Thomas DeSimone, with whom Medina was involved in business. The order, issued Thursday, came less than a week after the General Assembly'

'Thomas DeSimone, the village's director of public safety, said the signs have been taken down, and the department of public works was called in to erase the graffiti. He said the threat is not considered viable. The supermarket closed in April and has'

Timeline

Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Thomas DeSimone.

CHILDHOOD

1950Birth
Born in 1950.

19566 Years Old
DeSimone's paternal uncle, Frank DeSimone, was a criminal attorney-turned-mobster; "Uncle Frank" (as he was known) replaced Jack Dragna in 1956 after the latter's death, becoming the second DeSimone family member to become Los Angeles crime family boss.

TEENAGE

196515 Years Old
DeSimone was introduced to the Vario Crew in 1965.
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Henry Hill said in Wiseguy, "Jimmy Burke came by the cab stand one day with a skinny kid who was wearing a wiseguy suit and a pencil mustache. It was Tommy DeSimone. He was one of those kids who looked younger than he was just because he was trying to look older. Jimmy had been a friend of Tommy's family for years, and wanted me to watch out for Tommy and to teach him the cigarette business–help make him a few bucks."<br /><br /> DeSimone worked under Mafia capo Paul Vario with Jimmy Burke, Henry Hill and more. DeSimone was involved in truck hijackings, dealing and fencing of stolen property, extortion, fraud and murder.<br /><br /> DeSimone was infamous for his violent temper: His sister was quoted saying "Tommy's teenage years revolved around boxing, lifting weights, smoking cigarettes, and beating the shit out of a punching bag he kept in a spare room. He had a short fuse, and an animalistic appetite. He would drink almost a gallon of whole milk a day. His only other childhood hobby was collecting different kinds of pocket knives he kept in an old cigar box under his bed." While playing pinochle with Joseph Iannuzzi and Agro, he would throw darts at the other players when he started losing. Henry Hill's ex-wife Karen said in Nicholas Pileggi's book Wiseguy, "Tommy DeSimone always drove around in a brand-new car and wore expensive clothes, and he and Angela lived in a two-room tenement slum," while Hill described DeSimone and Burke by saying, "It didn't take anything for these guys to kill you. Read Less

196818 Years Old
DeSimone committed what is believed to have been his first murder on March 15, 1968.
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He was walking down the street with Hill when DeSimone spotted Howard Goldstein, a passing pedestrian, unknown to either gangster. Hill recalls DeSimone turning to him and saying, "Hey Henry, watch this." DeSimone yelled, "Hey cocksucker!" and pulled out a .38 caliber pistol, and shot and killed Goldstein. Hill exclaimed, "That was cold-blooded, Tommy!" DeSimone replied, "Well, I'm a mean cat."<br /><br /> In the book Wiseguy, Henry Hill said they threw a "welcome home" party at Robert's Lounge, which was owned by Jimmy Burke, for William "Billy Batts" Bentvena (confused as William Devino), a made man in Carmine Fatico's crew (the same crew John Gotti was a part of) in the Gambino crime family.<br /><br /> Bentvena had just gotten out of prison after serving a six-year term for drug possession. Hill states in Wiseguy that Bentvena saw DeSimone and asked him if he still shone shoes and DeSimone took this as an insult. Hill also said that Bentvena provoked DeSimone because he wanted to impress some mobsters from another crime family. A couple of minutes later when that issue was going to be forgotten, DeSimone leaned over to Henry Hill and Jimmy Burke and said "I'm gonna kill that fuck." Hill saw that he was serious about it. Read Less

TWENTIES

197020 Years Old
A couple of weeks later, on June 11, 1970, Bentvena went over to "The Suite" owned by Hill in Jamaica, Queens to go drinking with DeSimone's crew, including Hill, DeSimone, and Jimmy.
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Later that night DeSimone took his girlfriend home and Burke started making Bentvena feel comfortable. Twenty minutes later, DeSimone arrived with a .38 revolver and a plastic mattress cover. DeSimone walked over to him at the corner of the bar and attacked Bentvena. Before Bentvena was attacked, Jimmy Burke tightened his arms around Bentvena and he was pistol-whipped with the .38 revolver. He was so inebriated that he couldn't defend himself.<br /><br /> In the book Wiseguy, Hill said that before DeSimone started to beat Bentvena, DeSimone yelled, "Shine these fucking shoes!" DeSimone killed Bentvena not only because he had insulted him, but also because Burke had taken over Bentvena's loanshark business while Bentvena was in prison. According to Hill, Bentvena had been complaining to Joe Gallo about getting back this racket. Not wanting to return the business to Bentvena, Burke knew sooner or later Bentvena would have to be killed. After the beating, the three men put Bentvena in the trunk of Hill's 1970 Buick Electra and later while the three men were driving on The Van Wyck Expressway, they discovered that Bentvena was not dead. Later, they visited DeSimone's mother's house to get a knife, lime and a shovel. Later in the drive, closer to their destination, Hill said it had been an hour of DeSimone driving and he kept getting mad about the noises in the trunk and finally slammed the brakes and leaned over for the shovel and that Burke and DeSimone "didn't actually shoot him, they just stabbed him, thirty or forty fucking times, fucking horrible." Read Less

DeSimone had dated Jerothe's sister and had beaten her up, prompting Jerothe to threaten to kill him. When DeSimone heard about the threat, he went to Jerothe's apartment and knocked on the door. Jerothe opened the door and punched DeSimone in the face. DeSimone then shot Jerothe between the eyes. Read Less

197828 Years Old
DeSimone was alleged to have taken part in the December 1978 Lufthansa heist from JFK International Airport, the largest robbery in U.S. history at the time.
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The loot is reputed to have been almost $6,000,000, of which only a fraction was recovered. DeSimone was spotted because he had very well-polished shoes, too well polished for an airport employee. He was the one who suggested recruiting his ex-cell mate Angelo Sepe for the heist.<br /><br /> DeSimone then murdered Parnell "Stacks" Edwards. DeSimone was a good friend of Stacks and was disappointed to hear that he had failed to get rid of the truck used in the Lufthansa Heist in New Jersey, where the evidence would be destroyed. When DeSimone was told by a ranking mafioso that he could become a made man because of this hit, he agreed. Once he found out where Stacks was hiding, he visited Stacks and shot him six times in the chest and head with a silenced pistol. In Wiseguy, Hill mentioned that DeSimone had killed "around" four people in prison, bringing his body count to approximately 11. Hill commented that DeSimone would sometimes kill someone just because he wanted to try out a new firearm and wouldn't hesitate to use someone as human target practice. Read Less

Thomas' sister was Dolores and his two brothers were Gambino crime family associate Robert DeSimone and Gambino associate Anthony DeSimone, murdered by mobster Thomas Agro in 1979.
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He was the brother-in-law of mobster Joseph "The Barber" Spione, who was slain for refusing to help kill DeSimone in the late 1970s. His sister Phyllis was Jimmy Burke's mistress since she was sixteen years old. He is the ex-father-in-law of Gambino crime family associate Salvatore DeVita.<br /><br /> His Father owned and lost a printing shop due to a compulsive gambling addiction.<br /><br /> Both DeSimone's grandfather, Rosario DeSimone, and uncle, Frank DeSimone, were bosses of the Los Angeles crime family.<br /><br /> DeSimone's paternal grandfather Rosario DeSimone was the boss of the Los Angeles crime family after Vito Di Giorgio was killed in Chicago in 1922. Read Less

It is believed that DeSimone was murdered as a reprisal for having killed two of John Gotti's close friends, specifically William "Billy Batts" DeVino and Foxy Jerothe. On January 14, 1979, DeSimone's wife, Angela, reported him missing.
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She said she had last seen Tommy "a few weeks earlier" when he borrowed $60 from her.<br /><br /> Following the Lufthansa heist, Theresa Ferrara, Martin Krugman, Robert McMahon, Joe Manri, Parnell Edwards and Paolo LiCastri had all been murdered by Burke, who wanted to avoid paying them their share of the loot. For years, the New York Police Department and the FBI believed that DeSimone had either been murdered by Burke, or that he was in hiding to avoid being killed. DeSimone's brother-in-law, Lucchese family member Joseph "The Barber" Spione, also disappeared shortly afterward.<br /><br /> When Hill became an FBI informant in 1980, he told authorities that DeSimone had been murdered by the Gambino crime family. Read Less

Despite the oft-given date of death of January 14, 1979, the exact date of DeSimone's murder is uncertain.
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Henry claimed that in "the week after Christmas," he and Jimmy Burke had gone down to Florida to straighten out a drug deal gone bad. Tommy had remained behind in New York because he was going to be made. When Jimmy called to see if the ceremony had occurred (the code phrase was to ask if Tommy had seen his godmother yet), Burke was told that it had been called off due to a heavy snowfall. The next day, Burke found out that DeSimone had been murdered; he slammed the phone down and began crying, as depicted in the film Goodfellas. Read Less

Henry also indicated in both the book Wiseguy and the DVD commentary to Goodfellas that DeSimone had been killed when Martin Krugman disappeared on January 6, 1979.
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In 1994, Henry Hill, in his book Gangsters and Goodfellas, gave an expanded story of the events leading up to DeSimone's death. Hill's wife, Karen, had been having an affair with Hill's boss, Mafia caporegime Paul Vario. When Hill was sentenced to prison, DeSimone approached Karen for sex. When she turned him down, DeSimone attempted to rape her. In retaliation for the attempted rape, Vario approached the Gambino crew and revealed that DeSimone had murdered Jerothe and DeVino without first seeking permission from the Gambino crime family, violating Mafia protocol. Sometime in late December 1978, or early January 1979, DeSimone was contacted and told that he was going to be "made." Peter Vario and Bruno Facciolo took him to an unknown location, where he was murdered.<br /><br /> There are two theories as to who actually killed DeSimone. According to mob informant Joseph "Joe Dogs" Iannuzzi, Thomas Agro claimed in 1985 that he was the driving force behind the murder. Agro also claimed to have murdered DeSimone's brother Anthony after he turned informant. Agro also suggested murdering the eldest and last remaining brother, Robert. According to Ianuzzi, Agro would often laughingly refer to killing the third DeSimone brother, stating that "Maybe it's time to go for the DeSimone trifecta!" Another account, told by Henry Hill in Gangsters and Goodfellas, states that John Gotti himself was the assassin. On May 17, 2007, on the Howard Stern Show, Hill reaffirmed that Gotti had killed DeSimone. Read Less